usanna's day. Plants had always grown for Susanna, and she loved them
like friends, humoring their weakness, nourishing their strength,
stimulating, coaxing, disciplining them, until they could do no less
than flourish under her kind and hopeful hand.

Oh, that sweet, honest, comforting little garden of herbs, with its
wholesome fragrances! Healing lay in every root and stem, in every leaf
and bud, and the strong aromatic odors stimulated her flagging spirit or
her aching head, after the sleepless nights in which she tried to decide
her future life and Sue's.

The plants were set out in neat rows and clumps, and she soon learned to
know the strange ones--chamomile, lobelia, bloodroot, wormwood, lovage,
boneset, lemon and sweet balm, lavender and rue, as well as she knew
the old acquaintances familiar to every country-bred child--pennyroyal,
peppermint or spearmint, yellow dock, and thoroughwort.

There was hoeing and weeding before the gathering and drying came; then
Brother Calvin, who had charge of the great press, would moisten the
dried herbs and press them into quarter and half-pound cakes ready for
Sister Martha, who would superintend the younger Shakeresses in papering
and labeling them for the market. Last of all, when harvesting was over,
Brother Ansel would mount the newly painted seed-cart and leave on his
driving trip through the country. Ansel was a capital salesman, but
Brother Issachar, who once took his place and sold almost nothing,
brought home a lad on the seed-cart, who afterward became a shining
light in the community. ("Thus," said Elder Gray, "does God teach us the
diversity of gifts, whereby all may be unashamed.")

If the Albion Shakers were honest and ardent in faith, Susanna thought
that their "works" would indeed bear the strictest examination. The
Brothers made brooms, floor and dish mops, tubs, pails, and churns, and
indeed almost every trade was represented in the various New England
Communities. Physicians there were, a few, but no lawyers, sheriffs,
policemen, constables, or soldiers, just as there were no courts or
saloons or jails. Where there was perfect equality of possession and no
private source of gain, it amazed Susanna to see the cheery labor, often
continued late at night from the sheer joy of it, and the earnest desire
to make the Settlement prosperous. While the Brothers were hammering,
nailing, planing, sawing, ploughing, and seeding, the Sisters were
carding and spinning